Surround Haptics: Sending Shivers Down Your Spine

Surround Haptics is a new tactile technology that allows generation of high-resolution, continuous, moving tactile sensations anywhere on the human body. The technology is inexpensive. It can be used with a broad range of off-the-shelf tactile actuators. It is compact. And it can easily be integrated into clothes, furniture, accessories, hand tools, mobile devices, and game accessories, among other potential applications.

Surround Haptics could become a key technology in a new generation of home-gaming platforms that integrate highly detailed and dynamic tactile experiences with full-body motion controls, stereoscopic visuals, and spatial sound. This demonstration presents two examples:

• A modular home tactile display: a custom plywood chair that can also be used in daily life, soft pads for the seat and backrest with embedded tactile grids, and a wireless control board. The user controls the game with full-body gestures using Microsoft Kinect.

The Surround Haptics technology is based on new models of tactile perception that were formulated in a series of rigorous psychophysical studies. These new models further expand and deepen our understanding of human tactile perception.